Updated | PN youth’s Facebook comment riles pro-lifers

News that an 18-year-old member on the executive committee of the Nationalist Party’s youth wing was in favour of abortion, has prompted a demand by pro-lifers Gift Of Life (GoL) for “an urgent and clear reaffirmation of the pro-life values of the Nationalist Party.”

Paul Vincenti, spokesperson for GoL, claimed that the public had “an urgent right” to know whether the PN’s historic pro-life position had changed.

Vella’s views were made known in the Times of Malta after he personally took to task Gift of Life on Facebook for their “scaremongering attitude” towards anyone who dared even discuss the prospect of abortion in Malta.

On his part Vella has acknowledged that his views were not in line with the PN’s stand on the matter but was confident his opinion would be tolerated. “In the last two years, I have seen the PN transform into a more accepting party towards people with certain differing opinions – such as myself – while maintaining its core values.”

But Vincenti, who in the past unsuccessfully campaigned to have abortion enshrined in the Maltese Constitution as criminal offence barred by the highest law of the land, said that Vella “fails to see the monstrous contradiction” of his free opinion, “given that abortion kills a human being, and thus, removes from that same individual, their very own right to have an opinion on their very own future.”

Vincenti claimed this was “the most intolerant of attitudes towards a more vulnerable member of our kind.”

Vincenti even asked whether the PN – whose former home affairs minister Tonio Borg championed the constitutional enshrinement of abortion – “considers abortion to be a right.”

He said: “the most important value is the absolute value of each human life from conception. Does the party still hold this value as a core value? The Gift of Life Foundation express the concerns of the many thousand pro-life Maltese who need to know that their values are truly represented.”

In a statement, the PN said that the fact that a member had a different opinion on the matter did not mean that the PN's position had changed. It was the member himself who made it clear that what he stated what his personal opinion and that his party's position was different. The PN reiterated it would not be punishing the member because of his opinion.